Advice needed about preparation to chemistry graduate program

Graduate School
1

<p>I am quite worried about upcoming graduate admission process for chemistry. My average gpa is 3.41 currently at university ranked 17 in nation. My chemistry major GPA is close to 3.6~3.7, which is still not stellar compared to other applicants. Also, I am taking a grad level organic chemistry course and seeing that I have a fair chance to get an A. In addition, I will be having 2 year undergraduate lab experience including a summer internship at my university. However, I can't stop being nervous about not being a competent enough applicant to schools that I am applying since I will not be able to get a good gre verbal score (English is my second language). Plus, I know a lot of applicants that I have to compete will have very high GPA and stellar recommendations. Does taking a graduate course help little bit? Is there anything I can do to improve myself regarding to admission process?</p>

<p>Here's the list of schools I am applying
Havard (obviously, I know I can't get in but doing it anyway.)
Scripps Research Instittue
Ohio State
University of Illinois - champaign
University of Chicago
Columbia University
Stanford University
UC san francisco
Berkeley
UPenn</p>

2

<p>Since English is not your first language, make sure you get someone to help you edit your statement of purpose; publish if you can based on the research experience you plan to get; identify profs with similar research interests at the schools to which you are applying and correspond with them via email.</p>

3

<p>What Zapfino said. And yes, taking a graduate course and doing well will indeed look good on your transcript/application. In my opinion, your GPA is good enough. </p>

<p>Have you already taken the GREs? From your post, it sounds as though you haven’t, and if not, you are cutting it close.</p>

4

<p>I just took general GRE, and the verbal score was below average…
So, I got 400V and 800Q.
Although I already took the GRE subject test, I do not know the score yet. I guess I will study gre vocab next months and see how it goes.</p>